Dartmouth man tormented for decade by sounds in own body

Cure for superior canal dehiscence syndrome found at Boston hospital

For 10 years, Manny Pavao was tormented by the sounds in his own body.

He constantly heard the beating of his heart and a pounding noise with every step he took.

"You try to move your eyes back and forth and you hear your eyes move as if you were rubbing sandpaper on a piece of wood back and forth," Pavao said.

Communicating with his wife and daughter was a challenge.

"Talking, it was as if I was talking through a speaker that was blown out," said the 44-year-old Dartmouth man.

For years doctors couldn't figure out what was wrong. Pavao became depressed and lonely.

"I saw it over the years take a lot of the happiness away for him," said Lisa Pavao, his wife. "We'd be at parties, and he'd be off trying to just deal with it. It was difficult to watch."

Then one night Lisa was watching the news.

"All of a sudden, out of the clear blue they said they were going to tell a story of a woman who heard her heartbeat in her ear," said Lisa Pavao.

The Pavao's realized the woman on television had what Manny had and, more importantly, there was a cure.

"It was hope," Lisa Pavao said. "Something he had not had in all those years. It was just amazing."

They went to Massachusetts Eye and Ear Hospital where doctors determined that Manny Pavao had a rare condition caused by a tiny hole in a bone that separates the inner from the brain.

"The condition is called superior canal dehiscence syndrome," said Dr. Daniel Lee, of Mass. Eye and Ear. "I think it's common that it gets missed because it resembles many common conditions of the ear like allergies or eustachian tube dysfunction."

The syndrome was first documented in 1998 by Dr. Lloyd Minor of Johns Hopkins University.

Lee performed a four-hour brain surgery to fix it.

"We identify the hole under the surgical microscope," Lee said. "We then plug the hole and then repair the other holes with his own tissues."

Incredibly, as soon as Manny Pavao woke up from surgery, he felt something he hadn't experienced for years -- peace and quiet.

"It wasn't until the next day when I started walking, and I just stopped in the middle of the corridor, and I think I broke down," Manny Pavao said. "I said, 'I can't hear my footsteps.'"

Lisa Pavao said it was amazing.

"It's almost like it's too good to be true after all those years of suffering," she said.

Manny Pavao, a cabinet maker, is ready to get back to work and back to enjoying life again.

"I'm looking forward to the second phase of my life," he said.

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